Sweetbitter
by Beguile
Summary: It's beautiful right up until the moment that it isn't. A triptych of whumpy one-shots set during Matt and Elektra's college days.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Marvel and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: It's beautiful right up until the moment it isn't.

A series of whumpy one-shots set during Matt and Elektra's college days.

Author's Noes: These three one-shots were written for Whumptober – the first being 'fever,' the second being 'harsh climate,' and the last being 'stranded" – and being that they featured Matt/Elektra, I thought it fitting that they all get posted together. I'll be posting the remaining installments once they're edited.

Readers, you're wonderful. Thank you! Please, enjoy!

* * *

Sweetbitter

-One-

The appointment with his ophthalmologist is in Midtown. Matt subsists on a steady diet of Aspirin and determination until then, assuring his doctor that he's fine, he's just in law school; but afterwards, when the adrenaline has worn off and there's no one left to impress, he's uncertain if he has the stamina to make it back to campus. HIs shirt clings to him from perspiration. His throat burns with every breath. His joints ache. It's one of the rare times when admitting he can't do something is the less humiliating prospect. Falling asleep on the bus, getting lost in the city - those are very real possibilities that he cannot abide.

He can already hear the whispers, feel the stares. He's getting turned around while standing still with how much his head hurts. There has to be somewhere to go sit down for a few hours, regain himself. Elektra's place is around here. Well, one of her places. He's been enough times to know the way, and he has a standing invitation. A key, even, but Matt's only ever been there with her and always leaves before he overstays his welcome.

She's out of town this weekend. He can pop in, rest a bit, then head back to campus when he's feeling better.

He wants to refuse. The mere thought of it, that it even occurred to him, leaves him sicker than whatever bug he's picked up. He can't just go to Elektra's place, make himself at home, use her space, use her. She would drop him so quickly if she saw him like this, heard what he was thinking.

Matt starts to walk in the direction of the bus stop. A sudden fizzle in the air stops him. Rain patters against the sidewalk up ahead, slow at first, but the downpour is imminent. He moves quickly, ducking under awnings, and finally decides to stand in her lobby. That's it. Until the rain stops.

The doorman's heartbeat spikes at his appearance. Matt opens his mouth to speak, but he doesn't have to words. "I'm sorry," is the best he can manage before he tries to leave.

"Mr. Murdock," the doorman says, "Welcome back."

Matt stops, fear replaced with something else, something worse. Revulsion. Disgust. He turns around to meet his fate.

* * *

A couple hours: that's all Matt allows himself. No going in the bedroom. No eating her food or using her wifi. He swallows the last of the Aspirin he brought with him dry and hopes they kick in soon. Then he sits on the couch, waiting for his head to stop spinning.

The rain patters against the window panes. Matt diffuses to the sound. He clutches his arms around his stomach to stretch at the ache in the joints. He tries to work the pain out of his legs, too, but that's more futile than the efforts with his arms.

His dizziness worsens. He leans forward, burying his eyes between his knees, but he needs to lie down completely before he can focus, before he can get his breathing under control.

The shivers finally claim him. Matt tucks his legs up tight between his torso and the back of the couch. He clutches his arms to his stomach and breathes, just breathes. A few hours. He'll feel better in a few hours. Then he'll get the hell out of her apartment, and he'll let her know that he was there, that he's sorry, and maybe she'll call him again, just to let him know how pathetic she thinks he is.

And he is pathetic.

* * *

"Matthew."

He's stuck to the cushions. Dried tracts of perspiration snap as he rolls over towards the sound of her voice. Is he dreaming? He must be dreaming. Her heartbeat presses into his spine like a hand giving a massage, detangling the knots in his shoulder blades, in his neck.

"I'm sorry," he says, moving to sit up. One of his arms is asleep. His legs are cramped.

Elektra settles herself onto the couch near him, her hips fitting perfectly behind his bent knees. She drops one arm in front of his waist, pinning him to her; the other goes to his cheek. "Whatever do you have to be sorry for?"

God, her voice is so soft. How can she keep it that soft when she's so disappointed? And she must be disappointed. She's come back from her trip to find him drooling and sweating and occupying her couch.

"I'm sorry for coming by. I didn't mean to." Matt rubs at his eyes. "What time is it?"

"4 o'clock."

Matt inches a little higher on the cushions, his headache temporarily at bay. The Aspirin must had kicked in while he slept. "I'll go."

Elektra stops him. "In the morning."

Adrenaline flows like ice in his veins. Matt hikes himself higher on the couch, out of her grasp. He doesn't want her touching him when she knows how long he's been here, how long he's been sleeping. "I'll get a cab."

"You'll do no such thing."

"I'm sorry."

"So you've said." Elektra brushes a hand through his hair. "But you're sick, Matthew. You don't have to apologize for being sick."

"I'm apologizing for coming here."

"You have a key."

"I shouldn't have. You don't deserve this."

"Matthew." The way she says it makes it sound like a command, one Matt can't help but obey. "You're not going anywhere."

* * *

Elektra makes him a cup of tea and a piece of toast. She fetches him fresh capsules of Aspirin, sitting with him while he takes them. She's on her phone, cancelling things, clearing her schedule for the next day, arranging for groceries and meals, and then, before he can say it, "Don't say it, Matthew."

She finishes with her business on the phone and tosses the device aside. Her hands wrap around his, gently removing the half-finished cup of tea from his limpening fingers. "Let me draw you a bath."

Matt laughs lightly withdrawing his hand from hers. "No."

"Why not?"

"I'm not four."

"Were there people drawing you baths at four?"

He shakes his head, frustrated already. Elektra Natchios, queen of bad faith arguments, isn't going to win this one based on rhetoric. "I'm not a child."

"You'll feel better."

"I already feel better."

Elektra takes hold of him again as she rises off the couch. "This will be even nicer."

"Elektra."

"What?" She hasn't let go of his hands. "It's nothing I haven't seen before."

"It's not –"

"Then what?"

Matt can't explain it. There are no words. What she's suggesting, the rawness of it, the childishness of it, the neediness of it. He's a grown man. He shouldn't. He can't. He mustn't.

She gives his hands a soft tug. "You'll like it, Matthew. You'll feel better."

That's what he's afraid of.

* * *

They've shared the tub before, but they aren't going to this time. Elektra sits on the edge and runs the water hot enough that Matt feels the plumes of steam caressing his skin. He listens to her adding things and turns away from the scents of lavender, vanilla, and sandalwood permeating the room.

He keeps hoping she'll change her mind. That he'll change his mind. His headache is a dull throb, the dizziness has dissipated. He's a little warm still, but he could walk out right now. Elektra's hand hits the water, though, and he listens to that sound the liquid makes as it breaks and splashes against her fingers, and he's already unbuttoning his shirt. He's reaching for his belt.

Elektra joins him. He shies away from her. "We don't have to do this," she says. But yes, yes, they do. She's already done it. He's just trying to catch up.

The water does feel nice. It unsticks the sweat from Matt's skin, looses the tension from his muscles. He stays curled up, not wanting to relax, not wanting to enjoy it, but his skin betrays him, lulled by the heat at first, followed by Elektra moving a sponge over his back.

Matt inches forward. "What?" Elektra asks with a laugh, doing it again.

"It's weird," he says.

"What's weird?"

"This," he admits. "You, me, this. It's weird."

Elektra draws small circles with the sponge at the base of his neck. "Has no one ever been sweet to you before, Matthew?"

"People have been nice to me."

"I didn't say nice," Elektra says, dousing the sponge back in the water. She swoops it up Matt's spine and one of his legs unfolds into the water, muscles happy and relaxed as the strain of sleeping on Elektra's couch is eased out of them. "I said sweet."

Matt tucks his leg back into formation. He doesn't answer her.

Elektra nudges closer, holding the sponge at the base of his neck. Her lips brush along his cheek. "Am I the first?"

Again, he doesn't answer her, but for different reasons. He doesn't want to give her that kind of power.

How quickly he forgets that she doesn't need it given. She rubs at his back, his arms, his knees, her face lingering just inches from his. She touches him until Matt is melting into the water, his legs stretched out in front of him, his arms bobbing in the water, his head balanced on the back of the tub, the last of his strength having left him.

Elektra's arm is wrapped all the way around him, pinning him to her. Her lips brush his as she asks him again. "Am I?"

Matt doesn't move. The answer simply emerges with his next breath. "Yes."

Elektra beams, kissing his cheeks, his forehead, the tip of his nose. It's so chaste and so tender, and Matt crushes his eyes shut, lamely attempting to block her out, block all of it out. How much he likes it, how much he wants it, how easy it was for her to convince him, how quickly he gives himself to her. Elektra hushes him, and that hurts too, that tenderness, that intimacy. "Matthew, stop," she says, "It's alright," and the tone she uses breaks through, gives him the stones to let her help him out of the tub, let her towel him off, let her lead him to bed.

She tucks him right up against her, his head on her chest, ear over her heartbeat. Her hands stroking through his hair. The revulsion simmers away inside him, how he twisted her up like this. How he conned someone so perfect into loving someone like him, someone so terrible, and how he hopes, even now, that she might forgive him for being so weak, so foolish, so much the man she doesn't deserve.

* * *

Happy Reading!


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Marvel and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: It's beautiful right up until the moment it isn't.

A series of whumpy one-shots set during Matt and Elektra's college days.

Author's Notes: This is actually based on true events. I honeymooned in San Francisco, and for the first few days, I was fine. It was fog season. But after a sunny afternoon at Angel Island, I broke out in hives and spent the rest of the trip on anti-histamines for a photosensitive reaction. I've been meaning to give one to Matt ever since.

Readers, lovely Readers, please enjoy!

* * *

Two

Later, Matt will tell Foggy that Elektra talked him into it, but in truth, all she says is, "Let's go somewhere." When Matt asks, "Where?" she responds with characteristic ruthlessness, "Anywhere."

They end up at the airport, elbow-to-elbow at the bar, Matt tossing back Scoth-neatses like his life depends on it. He's never flown, and while Elektra's acquainted with his senses (and she's brilliant enough to have figured out anything she doesn't know by know), he isn't looking forward to coping with them at 36 000 ft without some liquid courage. Besides, Elektra doesn't mind. She foots the bill, ensuring that Matt is good and impaired by the time he boards the plane. He doesn't remember the specifics, but he knows that, at the very least, he doesn't do anything foolish or irritating. He manages.

They land to a cloudy day in San Francisco. They head straight to the Wharf, again because Elektra says so, and they wander through the crowds of tourists, pretending. They're newlyweds on a honeymoon. They're running away together. They're going to elope here, in the city, away from Matthew's repressive Catholic family. After two pints of clam chowder, several beers, and a loaf of sourdough, they retire to the local Natchios penthouse and fall asleep curled up on the living room floor, blankets and pillows strewn around themselves in a fort to block out the world.

The next day is sunny. They take in the Castro, Elektra reading off the brilliant puns of business names from signs and marquises. Matt's neck starts to tingle. He itches and is shocked to feel his skin being needled wherever he touches.

"Did I burn?" he asks Elektra.

She examines him first with her eyes and then with her hand. The needles return when she touches, sharp and prodding and intrusive. "No burn, but it looks like you may have a rash. Does it hurt?"

"No," Matt says, playing with his collar to hide his irritated skin from the light. His fingers brush the area and discover several patches of dried, upraised skin almost like scales circling his throat. "I'm fine."

"You're sure?"

"Yes."

Elektra shrugs. She continues pulling him along.

An hour later a patch has broken out on his brow. Several minutes after that, Matt is scratching at the backs of his hands and up his forearms. He digs his nails into his neck, and somehow, making it hurt more bothers him less. The stabbing, burning sensation of all those needles gets a little more tolerable when he's the one who's responsible.

Elektra brushes a hand over his forehead. "It's spreading."

"It's fine."

She doesn't believe him. She pulls him into a nearby coffee shop. The cold blast of air conditioning settles his skin somewhat, but Matt suppresses his relief. He doesn't want her to know that this is killing him, that he's gripping tightly to the edge of his seat out of need rather than want. His thoughts keep getting sidetracked by the shooting, sharp pain in his neck and brow and hands.

He doesn't even sense when Elektra returns with a cup of ice and holds it up to his neck. The shock of it is quickly overwhelmed with relief. Matt sinks against the chill, finally given a reprieve.

"I think you're having a photosensitive reaction," Elektra says, sidling up next to him.

"I've never had one before," Matt replies.

She shifts the cup to a new spot on his neck and it is heaven. "It's not like your skin has seen much of the sun."

"Well, it is trying to kill me."

Elektra laughs. She runs a hand through his hair. "Let's go back to the flat."

"No, Elektra, I'm-"

But she's already walking, his hand in hers, and while Matt tries to pull her back, Elektra isn't dissuaded. She wins eventually, and that's all that matters to her.

They end up in a CVS. Elektra fills up a basket with items as Matt stands beneath the vent, the air conditioning soothing the scaly hives across his forehead. He listens to her grabbing bottles and medicines and ice packs, a bunch of snacks. She's got her phone in her other hand, punching in orders through SMS. He would normally be more attentive, but his senses are constantly interrupted. No sooner does he try to focus than the stabbing pain is back in his neck or his head or his wrists, and he doesn't even realize how out of sorts he is until Elektra's taking him by the arm and guiding him to the car waiting outside.

She cracks an ice pack and places it on his chest. Cracks another and sets it on his hands. Matt diffuses, his whole being seeping into the chill. After so much time spent in agony, it feels good to have some relief.

They return to the Penthouse. Elektra takes the ice pack from his hands, but Matt clings to the one on his neck. She leads him through the lobby, straight to the elevators, and Matt's happy to let her. He is trying to breath, to think, to dislodge himself from the cycle of fear that's emerged that this won't ever go away. He'll be stuck like this, on a loop of hot pins thrusting into his skin.

"Cold shower," Elektra says. "That's just to get you started." She doesn't offer to share and Matt doesn't ask her to; he wants to get the humiliation over with, get back to normal, so he sheds his clothes and hops under a spray of frigid water, his skin instantly grateful. The stabbing sensation subsides. He steps out and dries himself off, the pain more of an itch now. He tries to dig his nails into his skin again, but it's just aggravating, now, how something that feels good ends up making him feel worse.

Elektra is waiting with ice packs. She brings him over to the bed and sits in his lap and clasps the cold to his skin. One pack drapes over his hands; the others, she holds to his neck and his brow. "I'm fine," Matt tells her, but they've done this before. Enough that Elektra doesn't dismiss him or chastise him, simply holds him, her hands strong and steady as she wards off whatever ails him.

She pops two capsules in his hand. "An antihistamine." Matt tosses them back dry, figuring they'll clear up his symptoms and they can get back to enjoying themselves, but about a half an hour later, he's lying in Elektra's lap as she plays with his hair and rubs his neck and shoulders. The television's on low, creeping through the fog settling in over Matt's thoughts, and amidst the dust cloud of San Francisco's cityscape, he's aware that his skin has settled down. The cold and shade and Elektra have undone what the sun did to him, and he clutches her legs and lower back in gratitude.

"Someone's feeling better," Elektra says warmly.

He is feeling better. The room is spinning a little, but it's okay, it's kind of like a ride. Maybe they should go back to the Wharf tomorrow, rent a boat. Take a ride on San Francisco Bay. She'll know what he's talking about then.

Elektra laughs. Her fingers thread through his hair. "Someone's never had antihistamines before."

Matt furrows his brow. "What?"

"Nothing, nothing." Her heartbeat settles back into that steady line, and Matt settles right along with it. "Go ahead and keep talking."

"Was I talking?"

Another laugh, low and in the back of Elektra's throat. Matt purses his lips self-consciously. He doesn't like this, being out of control. He's already so out of control with her.

"Ah, but I'm never out of control," Elektra says. "So you don't ever have to worry that you are."

Matt clams up. He forces his thoughts to go blank, wordless, formless. Focuses on the sensations. Her hand on his head. The sound of her heartbeat. The hum of the television. Shit, he's saying all this out loud, too, isn't he?

Elektra's pulse spikes like a laugh. "Yes." He has been saying all this aloud, but she doesn't mind. "Go ahead, say more. I'm listening, Matthew. Tell me whatever comes into your head next."

He buries his cheek into the warmth of her thigh, rounds his back even more deeply to her hand, and he tells her everything.

* * *

Happy Reading!


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Marvel and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: It's beautiful right up until the moment it isn't.

A series of whumpy one-shots set during Matt and Elektra's college days.

Warnings: Spoilers for "Kinbaku." Scene-fill for that episode.

Author's Notes: The last installment! Please, enjoy!

* * *

Three

Matt's thoughts are rarely silent. His mind is a three-ring circus of sensation, multiple acts of varying topics. Scenarios play themselves out in elaborate trapeze while the day-to-day parades below.

But his head is an empty place now. Roscoe Sweeney is an empty place too, his body cooling on the floor where Elektra left him. Matt stands there, frozen; he can't move. The very act of breathing seems too much, interrupting the deathly stillness of the house. Articulating the high ceilings and plaster walls and the corpse.

The car peels off into the night. Elektra gets the last word, as usual, and Matt gives it to her, as usual. He wipes the tears from his face, shifting his weight between his heels. His first thought: she isn't coming back. His second: she is. His third: he doesn't care. He isn't going to be here. He's leaving.

He follows the thought back through the house, chugging some more of the Scotch on the way before wiping down the surfaces of Sweeney's kitchen and heading out the back door. He walks to the fence, hops it. He dips into the forest, and he's about to keep walking when it occurs to him that he has no idea where he's going.

He can't turn back without risking being found. The forest it is, then, though hell if Matt knows where to begin. He's used to the ordered chaos of Manhattan streets, gauging depths by traffic stops and crosswalks. The forest speaks a whole new language. Matt hears trees and leaves and crickets and with Sweeney's fence behind him, that's all Matt knows. This is the world. He could be wandering out her for days, whereupon Sweeney's wealthy neighbours will call the cops to report a blind vagrant.

Now that would be like Elektra. Kill a man, leave Matt to wander in the forest. Maybe she'll come back for him, scoop him out of the trees after he's starving and lost and desperate, once he's finished himself off after the solid number she did to him in the house. And he'll cozy up next to her in the stolen car she's chosen for the occasion, tearfully apologize, let her take him to another house with another man, another vendetta, knowing he'll remember what hell it is to deny her. Knowing he'll hate the time alone in the forest more than he hates her.

Matt takes a bold step away from the fence, shoving that thought down, hard, along with all the other thoughts that accompany it. He wipes the last of the tears from his eyes, and he starts walking, the feeling there even if he doesn't know what it means. That pit in his stomach. That sensation of his chest bottoming out, of leaving everything behind. Standing still, he can't see, but moving, the depth appears. The forest takes shape. He runs his hand along the tree trunks, through the branches; he trips over a fallen log, turns it into a tumble, rises and doubles his pace. There's a house to his left; he dodges the hum of the electric lights, bounding past the path for more of the dense, wooded chaos.

He swings from a branch, leaps off a tree, and lands on the forest floor when he realizes what this is: it's falling. He's falling. Stick used to train him by throwing him off a roof and letting him figure out the landing. Depth didn't exist during the drop either. There was the now, the brutal now. He's an expert on falling, a master on falling, so he can survive the fall away from her.

* * *

Matt makes it to campus with that fire in his heart still burning. He storms up the stairs of the dorm and barrels into the room as Foggy comes barrelling out of it.

"Dude! Where have you been? It's five minutes to exam time, remember?"

"I'm not going," Matt says, yanking the blankets off his bed. He's going to burn them. He's going to burn everything. He's going to raze the ground of her.

"You're not…?"

"I'm not going." Matt starts on his clothing. The fine shirts, the sports jacket, the silk underwear, the expensive watch: all of it. Everything she ever bought him.

"Okay, well, I have to go."

"So go," Matt snaps.

"Fine," Foggy snaps back, slamming the door behind him.

Matt does his laundry. He takes out the trash. He showers. He shaves. He cleans up. He wants it to be like it was before, like she's never been here. He wants to leave her as easily as she leaves him.

As she leaves him.

She's leaving him.

Damn it, she's already left. And she isn't coming back.

Matt drops onto the empty mattress, the one that no longer smells like her, in the room where she doesn't exist anymore. She left him so easily; it should be easy to leave her, rewarding, even. But he can't. He just can't. She dropped him, and he's only just hitting the ground.

Foggy comes back from the exam quietly, sulking. Matt curls up tighter on his naked bed, hoping he can hide in plain sight. He listens to Foggy's heart pattering on the far side of the room, gently coaxing the answer out of him even though Foggy doesn't care. They never care. They leave.

But Foggy's heartbeat. Matt absorbs the sound in his spine, letting the impact knock the words out of his mouth: "She's gone, Foggy."

"She?"

"Elektra. She's…she's gone. And she's not coming back."

"Is that why you ditched your exam?"  
Matt nods into the mattress.

Foggy inches over from his side of the room. "You want to talk about it?"

Matt doesn't. He starts to cry. The ground is rushing up to meet him, and it's going to hurt. It's already hurting.

"Where are your sheets?" Foggy asks.

"The laundry."

"And…your clothes?"

"The garbage. Along with…everything else."

Foggy sighs. He trundles around his side of the room, grabbing things, stripping his own mattress. He comes over, landing heavily on Matt's bed. His blanket comes down, dense with smells distinctly not-her, not-him. Foggy. Foggy everywhere.

Matt feels so small, so agonizingly small. Like he's lost in the forest again, but this forest really is everywhere. "She left me alone."

"Hey, hey," Foggy grips him through the blanket, "You're not alone. You're not alone, Matt! You're with me! I'm right here!"

He is right there. In the blanket and in the room and in the pressure on Matt's side. Foggy is right there.

"And I'm not going anywhere," Foggy adds.

And even though Matt doesn't believe him, not then, he hopes that he will someday.

* * *

Happy Reading!


End file.
